You’re warned of Better Call Saul Season 2 spoilers from here on out, but where previously Gilligan had alluded to cutting a Breaking Bad return from Monday’s “Klick” finale, many presumed the omission to be Giancarlo Esposito’s Gus, now pushed to Season 3. Instead, Gilligan tells Entertainment Weekly that Betsy Brandt’s Marie Schrader very nearly popped up as Chuck’s X-ray technician, though they couldn’t figure a way around it distracting in the moment:

We talked about it at length in the writers’ room and I thought it would be a fun idea. Since Chuck was in the hospital and was about to get a CAT scan, I thought it’d be a fun for Hank’s wife, Marie, played by the gorgeous Betsy Brandt to be the one operating the machine, since as we know she’s an X-ray technician. I thought it would be a great and organic opportunity to bring back one of our fundamental Breaking Bad characters, and Peter and the other writers rightly talked me out of it.

Not because they don’t love Betsy just as much as I do but it would have distracted the viewer in the moment. It was a big moment in which we wanted to stay squarely inside of Chuck’s head as he goes through the terror and the agony of the scan. If our attention was diverted by Betsy, it would sort of dull the moment as it were, dramatically.

Of course, there’s always the potential for Marie to pop up in a similar function for Season 3, though Gilligan has downplayed interest in gratuitously shoehorning Breaking Bad characters without some actual function in the plot.

Season 2 already gave us the returns of Tuco, The Cousins, Hector Salamanca and others in minor roles, and Aaron Paul won’t stop discussing his own potential for a cameo, so what might Better Call Saul Season 3 bring?